Placement and size

Draycott and Church Wilne parish is surrounded by the following local Derbyshire places:^[2]

• Risley to the north
• Great Wilne to the south
• Breaston to the east
• Ambaston and Borrowash to the west.

It is 2.26 square miles (5.9 km²; 590 ha) in area, 2+3⁄4 miles (4.4 km) in length and 1+3⁄4 miles (2.8 km) in width, within the south western portion of the Erewash district, and is to the south east of the county. The parish is roughly bounded by land features such as Hopwell Park to the north, Church Wilne reservoir to the east, the River Derwent to the south, and the long-distance path Derwent Valley Heritage Way to the west.

Settlements

There are areas of built environment mainly to the middle and very south of the parish, outside of this being essentially rural with dispersed settlements and farms throughout. The main locales are:

• Draycott
• Church Wilne

Routes

The key road is the A52 trunk road between the two cities of Derby and Nottingham, which bypasses the population centres and briefly cuts through the far north of the parish, although there is no direct access. The A6005 road is an alternative route between the cities which goes directly through Draycott. The B5010 forms much of the north and north westernmost edge of the parish and runs between Borrowash and Risley.

Landscape

The area lies on the banks of the River Derwent and its valley, and is relatively flat, the land rising gradually to the north of the parish, with no hills. The parish outside of Draycott village is primarily farmland. Areas of trees are few, with a small coppice to the north west, and a cluster surrounding St Chad's Water at Church Wilne.

Geology

Throughout much of the southern areas of the parish and surrounding the River Derwent, the bedrock of the parish consists of mudstones, siltstones and sandstones of various types, formed between 250 and 200 million years ago during the Triassic period. Also throughout the area are sand and gravel deposits due to the geological feature known as the Allenton Terrace, which is the fluvial terrace of alluvium in the lower valley of the River Derwent that the area is built upon. This is notably around Church Wilne where historic mining took place.^[3]

Hydrological features

The parish southern edge is mainly formed by the River Derwent, although there are deviations from this either by the course of the river changing over time or following field boundaries on its banks. At Church Wilne a millrace was formed for a historic mill, and some of this channel is culverted to allow access to a factory presently located there. The hamlet also hosts St. Chad's Water, a repurposed gravel quarry that is flooded and is now a nature reserve. Work is presently ongoing by a charity trust to re-water the former Derby Canal, one of the first areas being worked on is a mile-long stretch north of Draycott.^[4] Although the Church Wilne Water Treatment Works and associated reservoir (which hosts the Church Wilne Water Sports Centre) are named after the hamlet, those facilities are within the adjacent Breaston civil parish.^[5] A related piece of infrastructure which runs alongside this, the Leicester branch of the Upper Derwent Valley aqueduct, does however come through the north east of the Draycott and Church Wilne parish.

Land elevation

The parish is relatively low lying being within the Derwent Valley, its lowest point is along the far south boundary along the River Derwent by Church Wilne, at 32 metres (105 ft). The land rises towards the north and west, with Draycott village marginally higher, in the range of 34–39 metres (112–128 ft). The highest section is adjacent to the far north parish boundary, within an area hemmed in by the B5010 and A52 roads by the Hill Top farm at 75 metres (246 ft).

Prehistory to Victorian era and early economy

The area has unearthed very few prehistoric and early history remains, such as a flint knife of Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age origin (3000 BC to 1501 BC) found in topsoil in a field to the south-east of Draycott.^[9] Also in the same area, a Bronze Age cremation cemetery, found human remains dated to the period 1600 BC to 1001 BC.^[10] A Late Bronze Age sword which was found by a machine operator during gravel extraction during the later 20th century at Church Wilne.^[11] The present day A6005 road from Derby which branches off to Sawley is an old Roman road during that era (43 AD to 409 AD) from Little Chester to the River Trent at Sawley which cannot be precisely dated but was probably built shortly after the establishment of a Roman fort at Little Chester during the 80s AD,^[12] and used by the Romans for efficient movement of soldiers, as well as to get Derbyshire lead to the Trent Lock area by the River Trent.^[7] It is possible that Church Wilne was the earlier settlement in the 7th or 8th century as St Chad established a base there by 670AD to spread Christianity through what was then the Kingdom of Mercia,^[13][14][3] and a church was recorded there in 822AD.^[7]

By the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, the area was part of Morlestan wapentake, and associated to Sawley, which became an extensive parish containing the chapelries of Wilne, Long-Eaton, Breason, Risley and the hamlets of Draycott and Hopwell.^[15] Domesday records: "in Salle, and Dracot, and Opeuuelle (Hopwell), a priest and two churches, a mill, one fishery, and thirty acres of meadow."^[15] The two churches were likely to have been Sawley and Church Wilne.^[16] The area at this time was held by the Bishop of Lichfield (St Chad being an earlier archbishop) but was recorded in Domesday as the Bishop of Chester as the diocese had briefly moved there during the period. It is thought that Draycott and Church Wilne by this time were one and the same and initially based by Church Wilne,^[13] only Draycott being called out in the 1086 survey possibly due to Wilne not liable to tax because of church ownership.^[17]

Residual traces of earthworks close to the church were found in the late 1960s and middle 1970s as evidence of a deserted medieval village, with possible medieval walls, foundations and pottery unearthed from the ploughed fields adjacent to the church, providing additional proof of extensive occupation.^[18][19][20] Great Wilne, across the River Derwent to the south, developed at a much later period, and was first recorded in the middle-late 13th century, although of the two Wilne communities ended up being the larger settlement.^[21] However, up to the Victorian period, journals recorded as many as 30 houses and a population of 140 in Wilne.^[22] It is possible water level issues throughout the Derwent floodplain probably began an exodus of locals towards slightly higher ground alongside a key transportation route, the Roman road.^[13] Some early topographic, documentary, cartographic and excavation evidence shows Wilne church may have been enclosed on as many as three sides by medieval meanders of the Derwent.^[23] There are several examples of medieval farming with ridge and furrow techniques to the south of Draycott and surrounding Church Wilne.^[24][25][26]

Certainly by the end of the 11th century soon after Domesday, Church Wilne began having individualised records in ecclesiastical and other administration documents.^[8] The ownership of the Sawley/Draycott/Church Wilne manors stayed with the diocese for some centuries, and after the Dissolution of the monasteries it was leased to the Stanhope family by the 1540s, of which the Earl of Harrington was their later peerage.^[27][28][29] William Stanhope (1683 to 1756) was made Earl of Harrington in 1742. His descendants including Charles Stanhope (1844 to 1917), the eighth Earl of Harrington held the manor into the 20th century. Wilne became an ecclesiastical parish in 1822, partitioned from Sawley ancient parish and at the time included Hopwell hamlet, Draycott liberty along with Breaston and Risley chapelries.^[22] These were all by 1866 separated out and the civil parish of Draycott and Church Wilne created.^[30]

Facilities and economy

Draycott Isolation Hospital opened in around 1905 to the northeast of the parish. The hospital was for medical cases that required isolation, it later became a tuberculosis hospital. The hospital closed in around 2003 and the buildings converted into the residential Woodland Park development.^[67][68] A house within this was one of Derbyshire's most expensive sold in 2021.^[69] Shardlow Rural District Council established a Draycott and Breaston sewerage and disposal works to the east of Draycott village at the turn of the 20th century. This remained a key local water processing facility until the nearby Church Wilne Water Treatment Works was created within Breaston parish in 1967. A pumping station remains onsite.^[70]

The First World War impacted trade greatly, and the textile and lace businesses in the village began to feel the strain. The mills had an excess of production space, some of which were let out to other proprietors and businesses. Victoria Mills started life as a tenement mill, but from that period outside operators who were not associated to lace manufacturers started hiring space, including hosiery and knitted outerwear manufacturers, upholstery manufacturers, dyers and electrical engineers involving a firm building relays and lighting systems started by a partnership of Jack Parry and Henry Martin in 1943.^[71][72] It was this later business named as Parry's that came to dominate operations at Victoria, by 1948 they had moved in^[73] and with a huge expansion programme took over the ownership of the mill in July 1957, the last lace manufacturer leaving the mill in February 1970.^[46] In 1972 they expanded further with a catering arm which is their core interest into the present day.^[72] In 1997 the company vacated the mills but were still based at an industrial site adjacent.^[73] The Victoria Mill site was partially refurbished with flats in the middle 2000s and the full work was completed in 2014.^[74]

Draycott Mill while mainly hosting cotton and lace manufacturers, part of the premises was known to be occupied by bicycle component makers from the late 1800s. By 1922 only one lace maker was listed, and by the late 1920 no lace firms were reported onsite. However a number of firms continued to utilise the space for various industry into the 1960s. The original factory front on Market Street was in 2001 converted to housing, the units in the rear of the site still involved with varied industrial and commercial uses.^[75][3] One lace manufacturing business that continues into the present day is Filigree and its brand Finesse now based in Ripley, which was begun in Draycott in 1850 under the name of Michael Browne & Co, and had as directors Sir William Hicking, Sir Ernest Jardine and Sir Thomas Stanley Birkin of the Birkin baronets, all being Nottingham lace entrepreneurs.^[76][77][78]

At Wilne, the mill buildings there continued to be worked by the Astle family until the late 1940s when the site was sold in 1949 to Haley and Weller, a toy company specialising in fireworks. The site continued the manufacture of these but expanded to incorporate pyrotechnics, and with rapid growth, started supplying military defence products. The business divested the consumer products arm in 1974. Following mergers and changes in ownership it now belongs to the Wescom group.^[79][80]

Derby Canal had begun to decline into the 20th century because of competition from other transport means, firstly from the railway, and later road haulage. It struggled through the first half of the 20th century before being closed in 1964 and parts of its route outside the parish built over to accommodate road schemes such as the M1 motorway at Breaston/Long Eaton and the A52 interchange at Derby. North of Draycott village, the section of canal was simply left to dry out, was filled in and grew over with vegetation. The canal's towpath between the A6002 Derby Road bridge and Breaston village was later overhauled to become a new cycle route, which was completed by Sustrans in the 1990s. The bed of the canal is also being restored in this area by the Derby and Sandiacre Canal Trust which formed in 1994 with the aims of reopening the route of the canal, and the section within the parish is being termed as the 'Golden Mile'.^[4] The renovated mill building on Hopwell Road will also be the base for the trust.^[40]

Quarrying, archaeology and leisure

Elvaston Quarry was established in the late 1960s when permission was granted for the extraction of sand and gravel from land at Sawley Road. The workings have since progressively extended westwards along the Derwent Valley.^[81] The last houses in Church Wilne were demolished in the 1960s, likely due to wider land being obtained for quarrying, and only two cottages next to the Coffin Walk are presently in the vicinity.^[23] Faint earthwork traces near Wilne church were identified in the late 1960s as evidence of the remains of its medieval village. Threats from quarrying prompted more extensive archaeological investigations in 1974 and 1975 by the Trent Valley Archaeological Research Committee.^[18][19] After the completion of the extraction works, the parish council obtained the land adjacent to the Wilne church from the quarry firm for a token one pound in 1984.^[82] The council redeveloped the area into a 12-acre (4.9 ha) nature reserve which has since become a retreat for birds and other wildlife in the area.^[83]

A large private house was constructed in the 1960s just off Gypsy Lane in the west of the parish, complete with swimming pool. It was in 1967 licensed as a restaurant called The Oasis offering cabaret entertainment facilities, with a dance floor over the pool.^[84] Later, it changed name to The Blue Orchid which ran notable Northern Soul music events throughout 1970.^[85] Continuing with nightspot facilities through the ensuing decades,^[86] it was later redeveloped into a hotel called Tudor Court containing 'Jester's Discotheque' by the middle 1980s,^[87] and in the middle 2000s the site was rebuilt into the present Coppice Park gated community.^[88]

One of the post WWII proprietors of the former Rose and Crown public house (closed in 2012)^[89] was G. Arthur Musson. Although he lived outside the parish at Kilburn, he had a keen interest in boxing and in 1967 established a club in the village,^[90] which over the decades moved into a building alongside Derby Road and hosted a young people's community centre and Taekwondo martial arts club. A table tennis club had formed in 1986 at Long Eaton and was playing in locations around Sawley, while gaining a reputation for sporting prowess. Needing a permanent base, in 1999 organisers discovered the boxing gym building was a suitable location and hired out space, eventually taking over the lease, renovating and the enlarging the building as they grew in membership and notability, eventually renaming themselves The Draycott & Long Eaton Table Tennis Club as a nod to former and present links with the communities.^[91][92]

Walking

The Midshires Way is a long-distance footpath and bridleway that runs for 230 miles (370 km) from the Chiltern Hills from Buckinghamshire to Greater Manchester. A section cuts through Derbyshire and within the parish it enters from the south via the footbridge over the Derwent at Church Wilne. It comes through the east of Draycott and exits to the north east of the village.^[98]

Cycling

Route 6 of the National Cycle Network is a long-distance cycle route from London to the Lake District within north west England. A section of this crosses from the west of the parish from Borrowash, following the A6005 road before branching off via the towpath of the disused Derby Canal. Avoiding the built-up Draycott village to the south, it exits to the east towards Breaston.^[99]

Structural protections

Environmental designations